TITLE: Awkward
SERIES: Imperfection Deviation
AUTHOR: Macx
RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: None of the characters belong to me, sadly. They are owned by people with a lot more money :)
FEEDBACK: Loved
Sequel ficlet to Wrong
The moment they had been restored to their old selves, nothing had been as it had been; and it would never be. Scavenger had known that his old life had ended when Shockwave had forcefully joined their minds, turning the Constructicons into mindless drones and blabbering idiots. All their genius had withered away, replaced by unquestioning loyalty to a crazed lunatic, and the ability to destroy instead of create.
Ratchet had worked long and hard to separate them. Together with Sam Witwicky he had done the impossible. Bonecrusher had been forever lost to them, a casualty of war, but the surviving five had finally been able to think on their own. The connection that had made them a combiner, that had torn them apart whenever they had been forced to become Devastator, had been severed.
Something had remained, though. Scavenger had known it right away, able to pick up faint echoes of his former combiner mates. Now they were colleagues and friends once more, but the shadow of the old connection was there. As was the dark hole of Bonecrusher’s absence. It no longer hurt, but he could see it.
Scavenger had never been one to seek out comfort in another spark. He would have continued to function as he was now. He felt no loss at all, only what he had gained. He was free again, and the little shadows were a small price to pay. The echoes helped.
Until the moment a totally different fate combined with his own.
Scavenger didn’t know why he had allowed it the first time, but it had been fast and furious and strangely satisfying.
He started to enjoy the brief moments, hidden and secret and like a dark, dirty secret between him and the silver Autobot.
The moments became more. They became stretched out encounters, filled with a slower beginning and a longer middle, followed by a softer end. Scavenger explored the other spark, felt its own pain and darkness, a different kind than his own. Where he had accepted the loss and had lived without the connection to the other Constructicons before, Sideswipe was a twin who couldn’t believe in his brother’s death and was very much filled with hope. A still feverish but weakening and flimsy hope.
“I won’t accept his death until I see his lifeless shell,” the Autobot had once remarked before leaving,
The words had come after Scavenger had told him to get on with his life and accept that Sunstreaker was probably gone. Should he have survived, chances that he would find his way to Earth were slim to none.
Sideswipe had glared at him as if Scavenger had suggested his twin was willingly bonded to Megatron.
The Constructicon shook his head and walked into his lab. He found Long Haul already there, shooting him a brief look. Whether his fellow Constructicons knew about this relationship or not, they had never lost a word about it. And even if they knew, they were all their own persons. They could do whatever they wanted and with whoever.
And Scavenger enjoyed it. As did Sideswipe, even if the Autobot would never confess to it. At least he no longer fled from the room and treated the encounter like it was the worst ever done to him.
It wasn’t a bond and never could be. It was sharing on a mutual level, sharing that was pleasure. It aided in chasing away the tiny kernel of darkness inside himself and the much larger hole in Sideswipe - at least for the moment.
He smiled a little and switched on his computer.
Sideswipe always left, without really running, but he came back.
And each encounter healed them both.
Well, there you have it. Weirdness, part II ;)
...third installment currently in the works